Social Work Practice During Times of Disaster

Lena Dominelli (Professor) is Chair of Social Work and Director of the MSc in Disaster Interventions and Humanitarian Aid at the University of Stirling. She has undertaken research in projects including climate change and extreme weather events, health pandemics such as Covid-19; earthquakes; volcanic eruptions; disaster interventions; vulnerability and resilience; community engagement; coproduction and participatory action research; and climate risk for young people. Lena has published widely in social work, social policy and sociology, including several ground-breaking classics, the latest on Green Social Work which provides a theory and practice of disasters from a social justice perspective that includes environmental justice and sustainability. A key message of her research is using a holistic approach that includes the duty of people to take care of Planet Earth by seeking alternatives to fossil fuel-based patterns of production and consumption to ensure sustainable approaches to meeting human needs and ending wars through the peaceful resolution of conflicts. She founded Social Work for Peace to this end. She currently chairs the IASSW Committee on Disaster Interventions, Climate Change and Sustainability and attended United Nations discussions on climate change (UNFCCC COP), since Cancun, Mexico in 2010. She also chairs the Special Interest Group on Disasters, SPEDI, for the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and is a founder member of the England Round Table on Disasters and Social Work. She has received various honours and prizes for her work.

1.Introduction. Part One – Disaster Interventions in Local and National Contexts in the UK. 2.Contextualising Social Work Interventions during Disasters in the UK: A multi-nation approach. 3.COVID-19: A health pandemic that challenges the social work profession. 4.Climate change: Social work responds to political failures nationally and internationally. 5.Extreme weather events: Flooding and wildfires, disasters frequently calling upon social workers’ contributions. 6.The Grenfell fire disaster. 7.Terrorist attacks: Immediate and long-term consequences for social work interventions. Part Two - Learning lessons from disasters occurring in other countries. 8.Storm surges and hurricanes. 9.Earthquakes: Socio-economic and political structures turn a natural hazard into a social disaster. 10.Volcanic eruptions: A natural hazard that has unanticipated global impacts. 11.Financial Disasters. 12.Conclusions.